Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68556 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68556 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
No. If I went down this line with him, all the walls I’d constructed would crumble. They’d already suffered an astounding blow at the sight of him—wild and frantic, his scent filling the air with a painful sharpness.
“Annabelle—”
“Stop,” I cut him off. “Please stop saying my name like that.”
“Like what?” He challenged, taking a step closer to me. “Like I love ye?”
Tears coated my eyes, and I nodded.
He sighed, his breath warm on my cheeks he was so close. My body vibrated from the battle of wanting to run away from him and toward him at the same time. He dared to reach a hand up and wipe a traitorous tear from my cheek.
Despite myself, I leaned into his hand.
“It’s not true,” he said, and reality crashed over my head.
I pulled away and walked past him, collecting the last set of pajamas from my dresser drawer across the room. I set the box atop the dresser, now filled to the brim with things that suddenly didn’t seem so important. My entire relationship, summed up in the scraps of silk and lace I’d left at his house. Scraps—just what we were now.
I sucked in a sharp breath, mustering the courage I needed to say the words.
“Goodbye, Connell,” I choked out, reaching for the box.
“Don’t you dare,” he said, the primal tenor in his tone reverberating inside my soul.
I spun, eyes wide. “Don’t I dare?” I glared at him. “Connell, do me a favor.” Good. Anger was much better than the heartbreak.
“Picture me,” I continued. “Picture me with Cannon. Or Logan. Hell, picture me with those two rookies, at once. Their hands on me. Their lips on my skin.” He flinched, but I kept going. “Now picture me laughing about it. Imagine reading a text where I explain how it doesn’t count if you’re not in the same state. Hell, not the same city.”
I stepped closer to where he’d turned into a statue, the box forgotten behind me. His muscles rippled beneath his skin as he folded his arms over his chest. Pain—real and raw—flickered in his blue eyes. I ignored it, not certain what he was so upset about. Getting caught? Certainly, it wasn’t over losing me or he wouldn’t have done what he did.
“Feel that?” I asked, stopping a breath from his body, the tension curling from him and settling on my skin. “Now imagine how I feel thinking about you being with other women and then bragging about it?”
“I. Didn’t. Do. It.”
Exhaustion settled in my bones. My heart ached with the want to believe him because the pain I’d been living with for the last two days was just too much.
“You didn’t do what exactly?” I asked slowly.
“I never touched those women—at least not in any way that wasn’t strictly professional. I haven’t put my hands on any other woman out of desire besides you since we met. I did not cheat on you.”
His eyes were so sincere that I couldn’t help but believe him. But if he didn’t cheat on me, why would he run off at the mouth that he had?
“You didn’t say those things? The reporters just made it up?” I edged, hating myself for opening the door for him to crush me completely.
He visibly swallowed.
And I felt the lack of denial in my chest like a punch. I stumbled back a step, then another.
He followed me, arms outstretched between us. My back hit the dresser, and he dropped his hands at the glare in my eyes. “I did say those things,” he admitted, and somehow a new fresh wave of pain sliced through my soul like an axe dropping.
Some, stupid, hopeless part of me wanted it all to be a lie. For him to be suing the reporters for slander.
“But it was a joke,” he said. “I was trying to put this jackass in his place.”
I tilted my head. “A joke?”
“Sarcasm,” he clarified, raking his hands through his hair. “I was pissed off at his implications about me. About all NHL players. I lost my temper and made a joke—”
“A joke?” I narrowed my gaze. “Lost your temper?” I repeated. “By saying you loved to cheat while you were draped with a handful of half-naked, perfect women?” I hugged myself, tearing my gaze away from him.
“First off, they were far from perfect, and second...not my most clever move,” he said. “But I was only repeating what he implied. Go talk to him! He’ll tell you.”
I swallowed hard. “There are ten other tabloids that have run the same article. Who exactly would you like me to speak with, Connell?”
“The scunner who started this bullshit,” he snapped.
“Scunner?”
He rubbed his palms over his face. “Irritating piece of shit,” he clarified.
“You didn’t cheat on me,” I said the words aloud.
“Never,” he said on a loosed breath. “I would never.”
I cleared my throat, hugging myself tighter. “You just think so little of our relationship that you thought it would be funny to say those things. Things you knew would hurt me, cut me to the quick.”